This book offers a comprehensive synthesis of the multicultural complexities of the drug problem. The editor and contributors provide a well-documented analysis of the present state of drug consumption, trafficking, and production in the Americas. The primary focus is on cocaine, a substance that in the last 20 years has seen increased and pervasive consumption.
The depressed Peruvian economy that transforms the Andean peasant into a cocalero, or coca grower, and the social marginality of U. S. inner cities that creates cocaine addicts are both treated as redeemable situations. By contrast, dealers’ activities are elucidated in a way that leaves no doubt about their international ties or their political connections at the local level in the Andes. What stands out clearly in these essays is that even though the drug problem is different in each country, its peculiarities are articulated in a network that extends from the Andes through Mexico and the Caribbean into the United States.
The respective contributors offer a good, critical assessment of governmental drug policies in the countries involved. Their emphasis on demand reduction rather than supply control is a realistic position. From the perspective of a Latin American, it would have been interesting to have a more explicit presentation of why the United States consumes quantities of drugs in general and cocaine in particular.
If collaboration among the nations of the Americas is to be taken seriously, this book should be translated into Spanish promptly and widely distributed in Latin America. It would also be helpful to have similar publications in Spanish translated for English-speaking readers. It is not enough to have the leading Latin American specialists and their U. S. counterparts meet in workshops or conferences and then publish their proceedings for a very limited audience. To solve the drug problem facing the Americas, all the parties involved must help create the strategy. In this sense, Smith’s book is a modest step in the right direction.
